A recent interview with producer of the Narnia Films, Mark Johnson, shows that the filmmakers did see problems with the films, and that they are going to try to fix that for Dawn Treader.
When Mark Johnson was producing “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” released in 2005, he and Walt Disney Pictures were careful to hew to a PG rating.
“We were always concerned that we didn’t want to make it too young, and were worried in our campaign about exposing some of the talking animals. We thought an older audience might say it’s just for little kids,” Johnson said.He found the problem reversed for last year’s film sequel, “Prince Caspian.”
The second film grossed $420 million at the global box office, while the first raked in $745 million.
“The second was accused of being too old. What happened [is that] it was less about the Narnian creatures than human creatures,” Johnson said.